


Last year at Marienbad

by Satellite_Of_Love



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst with a Happy Ending, Film Noir, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Just two people made to love each other, Loosely set in France in the 60's, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Unreliable Narrator, a bit philosophical, burning desire, time loops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25734535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satellite_Of_Love/pseuds/Satellite_Of_Love
Summary: Jisung is like the fading memory of a recent dream, fresh yet distorted in your consciousness.Last year Minho and Jisung had an affair.Minho goes back to Marienbad to find Jisung as they had agreed. Jisung doesn’t know who Minho is. They know each other. They don’t. They’ve kissed. They haven’t. Jisung is dead. Jisung is alive.When the fine line between the dreamlike and what’s real disappears, it’s difficult to agree in what happened and what didn’t, what is and what isn’t. Minho knows one thing: he wants Jisung more than anything.Or5 times in which Jisung doesn’t remember Minho + the 1 time he does.
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 17
Kudos: 38
Collections: MINSUNG BINGO: Round One





	Last year at Marienbad

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everybody! This fic is loosely based on the movie Last year at Marienbad, an old film by Alain Resnais that I heavily recommend you watching. It might be confusing, but I am confident by that the end of it you will be able to piece it all together, and in case you have any questions we can always solve them in the comment section. Hope you enjoy it!
> 
> This work is part of the [Minsung Bingo](https://twitter.com/minsungbingo) event. Please go check them out, as some works are not published on AO3 and are directly post on twitter. This one in particular was made to fill the following squares: AU-Crime/Mystery/Thriller; Non-linear narrative; Unreliable Narrator; AU-Actors/Hollywood; And my free space, Time Loops.
> 
> Also thanks to msrosendale for helping me by being my beta, you are amazing and I don't deserve you.

Absurdly complex, just like most baroque creations pretend to be, the hotel imposes itself with the remains of what once was the shelter of the top of the hierarchy. Faced with the menace that the Protestant Reformation represented, Catholics had needed to create a style that would assert dominance and this seemed to be a way to fulfill that need. 

In France, however, the baroque style hadn't opened its way like in the rest of Europe. Here, the buildings were much more focused on regularity and less in ornamentation, with more of a geometric order and less of the obscene, in-your-face decorations, even if its purpose still was to express power and majesty. Given this, it is not a surprise to find that the interiors of the hotel are spacious, symmetric and full of colossal columns, with a vast garden in front of it visible from the insides, displaying infinite bushes trimmed into the shape of a cone and pompous fountains with everlasting sources of water.

Searching, immersed in the stomach turning feeling of anticipation, Minho recognizes everything he had already come to know and discovers what he was too distracted to take in last time. He passes his hand through the brink of the most hidden fountain, with a shiver running down his spine at the memories that the object sparks. Somehow, he finds himself convinced that there is no way this is going to turn out alright.

Longing hadn’t toned down, it hadn’t decreased, much less disappeared. A year hadn’t been enough for Minho to get on his right mind and assure himself that pursuing a relationship with someone like him wasn’t meant to end up well. There wasn’t much that could be done, infatuation had taken over his body, resulting in sleepless nights and a desire so strong that could induce him into shedding tears.

Minho has surrendered into the hands of fate, unaware of the twirls and bends that it has prepared for him, naïve when exposed to a reality far more complex than he is aware, with multiple layers of subjectivity, interpretations and deviations. He knows he is not ready, but he also knows that the trigger has been pulled and that the only possible way awaits him, untouched and ready for him to take it.

He needs to find Jisung.

As telling as habits are, most people can be found around the places that connect to their beings, to their realities and behavior. For Jisung, there is no particular place to connect him to, there is no certain location you can find him in no matter what. When trying to find Jisung it is more important to pay attention to the situations unwinding around, it is in the middle of certain gatherings that you will, most likely, find him.

So when a congregation of expensive shoes, long cigarettes and muffled chatting presents to Minho’s eyes, he knows that he is in the right direction to finding the man he has been longing for. 

Jisung has no particular place to connect him to, what he has is an almost unavoidable crowd surrounding him at all times. He doesn’t harvest a desire to be the center of attention, but he has no saying on the matter either way.

The world had fallen in love with rounded eyes and a brilliant smile the day his first movie was aired. Just like the short-haired woman in the poster of the film, viewers had fallen into Jisung’s arms, and ever since then no one could’ve possibly had enough of him. There’s nothing weird in finding that people can’t help but try to stay by his side for as long as possible.

Minho wants to set himself apart from this mass of people- fans, really, but at times it becomes difficult to find reasons that could separate him from the eager crowd, a gathering of people ever-present, always demanding for more.

Is it bad that he has come to meet him once again?

On the elevated platform a man with the smile of a salesman and the charisma of a pastor sings a song about the past events that no one remembers with clarity. The man is, as predicted, Han Jisung, possibly the only other soul contained within the limits of Minho’s own narrative.

At moments like this every standing person on earth feels like an extra in a story they don’t belong to. Minho swears that any conversation between them sparks only if he is near enough to witness them, he swears that they get repetitive, that they are unable to move past the shallow events of current times.

And so they are, the whole population of this social gathering, standing in front of the magnificence that Han Jisung is, struck with awe at his high-pitched voice that melts in the jazz played with trumpets and acoustic basses. But none of them knows, or so Minho hopes. No one knows the reality of what having Jisung in between their arms is like, no one knows what his lips and his tears taste like, no one knows how the universe was created with the sole purpose of Minho being the only human being in Jisung’s eyes. No one knows because the story simply doesn’t go like that.

Or so Minho hopes. Once again.

When the song finishes Minho is able to find him. People open their way, waiting for them to find each other.

‘’Jisung, you are here,’’ He says, hopeful as he looks at the man with a perfectly fitted suit. The man turns around from where he was chatting with someone else, looking at Minho up and down, enjoying what his eyes are meeting.

‘’Hello…how rude of me, can you please remind me what your name is?’’ Jisung asks with a bright smile and playful eyes.

A wire gets cut inside him. The electron flux is no longer running, no longer connecting thoughts in his head, unable to find a way to send orders to the rest of his body. Minho tries to open his mouth, but his face is paralyzed. Seconds are running by and he can’t find a proper reaction to the question.

Why is Jisung pretending that this is the first time he is flirting with him?

‘’Don’t you think that’s a bit of a cruel joke?’’ Minho tries to play it down, even if pain is starting to infect his laugh and spread into his facial expressions. He needs to believe that this is just a joke, a really malicious one.

‘’I’m terribly sorry, I just happen to not be the brightest when it comes to remembering names,’’ Jisung explains, confusion drawing in his face at Minho’s reaction.

‘’Jisung…why are you acting like this?’’

In his eyes, however, no lie can be found. Jisung is being sincere when he says that he doesn’t remember him. How can that be possible?

No, no, Minho can’t let himself be fooled. This is far too important for him, too much depends on this for him to let go this easily. Jisung is an actor and there’s no way of knowing if this is a ruse set for god knows what reason.

A voice raises from behind them. Jisung is being called by someone else, someone else is demanding his attention. Someone else is demanding Jisung’s attention and Jisung is acting like that someone deserves it more than Minho does.

‘’Jisung, I came back for you. We met here last year, we had an affair and we said that we would find each other again,’’ He is desperate to gain the ultimate prize, for Jisung to notice him.

Jisung’s smile mutates in an almost grotesque way. He is no longer feeling flirty, the only thing clear enough in his features is discomfort, something that Minho has never seen directed to him.

‘’I’m sorry sir, but I don’t know who you are.’’

***

‘’Do you mind if I join you?’’ 

The sound of Jisung’s voice, one far deeper than the one he uses for singing, startles Minho out of the self-pitying circle he was immersed in, jolting through every single one of his nerves until he feels like the lightest breeze will be able to knock him down.

He’s been sitting on the counter of the bar for a while now, a watery whisky in between his warm hands, with a soft sound of jazz on the background and the dim yellow lights reflecting on his hair. Afraid to look up, Minho strengthens the grip on the glass, holding on for dear life. His voice sounds dry when he speaks.

‘’Do you consider that prudent?’’ 

There’s no need to look at Jisung to know that he is smiling, for the gesture bleeds into his tone. ‘’Why wouldn’t it be prudent, Minho? What could be imprudent about sitting here?’’

Minho takes his glass into one hand and gives it a faint shake, needing to concentrate on anything other than the man standing next to him.

‘’Your façade is not as well-kept as you would like to think, Jisung.’’

‘’What do you mean?’’ 

Reaching for a cigarette from the packet displayed on the counter, Jisung’s hand is suddenly close to Minho’s, a faint touch of their fingers tingles against Minho’s skin, turning into a persisting feeling that remains there once Jisung’s hand is out of the way.

Minho doesn’t answer and Jisung doesn’t make a noise, waiting. In his day to day life, Minho is not one to give up easily, but this situation is far different from what he is used to. In this dazed reality there is no need for Minho to try to impose his will, there is no need for him to remain dominant, the die is cast and there is no way he will come out victorious of this situation.

Everyone else in the room seems to remain still as they wait. They are not expectant of what the outcome will be; Jisung’s victory is a well-known fact. No, they wait in the same way a person rereading the same book waits for what they know will happen, always unnerving even if predicted.

There is no shame in giving up when no other option exists within the realms of possibility, so Minho turns around and lights Jisung’s cigarette, allowing everyone else in the hotel to resume their activities and breathe normally once again. Jisung’s eyes lit up when the flame reflected on them, its sway drawing a moving light on his irises. He shuts them as he gets closer to the lighter, inhaling until the cigarette is lit. When he exhales, Minho is hit both with the smell of tobacco and the particular touch that Jisung’s breath tends to hold, making him swallow when he remembers.

‘’I didn’t tell you that my name is Minho.’’

‘’Of course you did, how would I know it otherwise?’’ Jisung asks, looking as if he was in fact confused. His lips wrap the cigarette’s filter once again, leaving it damp on his way out as he looks into the eyes of the man in front of him. 

Minho’s hitching breath adds another proof to how impossible it seems for him to stay composed in the presence of Jisung. The air in the room gets thicker, denser as Minho tries to find the will in him to act in a rational way.

‘’You remember me, that’s how you know it.’’

‘’Please don’t take it personally, I meet a lot of people every day. Maybe we’ve met before, maybe we haven’t, at the end of the day I still don’t know who you are and that’s what matters.’’

‘’We spent two weeks together, Jisung, it would be impossible for you to not remember it.’’

‘’It would be impossible, indeed, that’s why I’m inclined to think that it never happened,’’ Jisung laughs, nervous but remaining as charismatic as ever.

‘’No, you don’t understand,’’ With a choking breath, Minho feels like a slave to his need to make Jisung say the truth. The new attitude elicits a step backwards from Jisung, who seems to be uncomfortable with the way the other man is acting. ‘’We promised that we would find each other again here, you came back on the exact same day we agreed we would come. How am I supposed to believe you when you say that you don’t remember me?’’

In a perturbing shift of roles, Jisung’s attitude seems to sober up. The flirting image he had been portraying seconds ago is buried under a sudden seriousness that both matches him and doesn’t.

‘’Minho, do you remember the man I was with earlier? That’s my husband.’’

‘’I guessed that much,’’ The tone of his words is bitter.

‘’Do you think that I look stupid?’’

‘’I would never think that.’’

‘’Then why do you think that I would come here with my husband? Do you think I dragged him here only to make him suffer? Or do you think I did it to upset you?’’

‘’You’ve always been…’’

‘’No, I don’t know what idea you have created in your mind, but I am not here to reconnect with a lover I once left behind. I’m here to enjoy my holidays with my husband, anything else you add to that story is on you, so I will ask you to kindly remove me from this image of reality you have created.’’

The harmony of the music playing on the background becomes almost dissonant, with augmented, long chords that change the atmosphere of the room.

‘’Why did you come talk to me, then?’’

‘’Maybe I was curious. Maybe there was something in you that called my attention.’’

‘’Come with me,’’ Minho asks - no, demands, looking at Jisung with pleading eyes.

‘’Where to?’’

‘’I don’t know. Let’s go to the gardens and I’ll tell you the story of how we met. You’ll remember me.’’

Jisung’s knuckles come to caress Minho’s cheek. They feel both soft and dry, they make Minho remember the times when he has held the same hands and delighted in their warmth.

‘’You are a very handsome man, Minho. Who knows what could’ve happened had we met before,’’ His smile is full of pity as he seems unable to look at Minho in the eyes. ‘’But I haven’t met you before, I met you today, and today I am married.’’

And Jisung leaves, because that’s what he’s meant to do.

***

With pearls and rings and earrings, with long, flowy stripes in his shirts and a confident pose, Jisung’s fashion has a tendency to stand out from the crowd. Like a gift from heaven, the seat besides the outstanding man is the only one left on the long, crowded dinner table.

Minho has been invited here this time, not by Jisung, rather by someone else, someone without a name or a purpose other than linking the two men together once again.

‘’I do know you,’’ The words come out timidly, whispered with less confidence than what Jisung’s discourse tends to carry. He seems to almost regret pronouncing them as soon as they leave his mouth.

Minho’s heart starts to accelerate in his ribcage as a high beeping sound settles in his ears. Does this mean what he thinks it means? Has Jisung finally decided to admit…? Have the pieces of the puzzle finally gotten together to rip off the torment that has been drowning Minho’s heart?

‘’I don’t mean what you want to think,’’ Jisung is quick to clarify, knowing full well where Minho’s thoughts would head to as soon as the desired words left his lips.

‘’Then how…?’’

‘’Les Temps Modernes. You write there, don’t you? With Sartre and de Beauvoir,’’ Whispering, Jisung turns his head back for a moment to send a quick smile at his husband on the other side of the table. The unnamed man is still too immersed in some sort of game to notice the intensity of the exchange going on by the other side. 

‘’Do you read that?’’ His question can’t hide the astonishment he is feeling.

‘’Do I not look like your typical reader? Am I left out of the demographics?’’ With a smirk, Jisung’s attention seems to be on Minho and only Minho once again. The friendly smirk is contrasted with squinting, almost calculating eyes. His overall expression keeps his feelings hidden, and Minho is left unsure if Jisung was offended by the question or not. He has a feeling that it doesn’t matter how carefully he chooses his next words, whatever he says will be the incorrect option.

‘’I just don’t understand why someone with a life as exciting as yours would be interested in something as dull as my writing is,’’ He chooses to say, believing that putting himself down will at least make them even.

‘’Are you now insulting my taste in philosophy?’’

‘’No, I’m…’’

‘’I’m joking, Minho. I understand why I wouldn’t look like the kind of person that reads your articles.’’ 

The people around them laugh, they are caught in some looped joke about some famous personality, someone that Jisung probably knows. The subject of his desires joins the laugh, acting louder than when he was simply chatting with Minho, getting everyone’s attention and inducing them into an even louder collective laugh. Soon enough it feels as if the entire salon was laughing, they enjoy themselves and congratulate Jisung on a joke he never made.

‘’I didn’t mean to judge you, I just can’t believe that you are real,’’ Minho tries to clarify once the noise is toned down and Jisung’s attention is back on him.

‘’Now, don’t be cheesy…’’His words trail off, putting down the glass of wine he had been lazily sipping from. His eyes open wide when he looks back at Minho, who suddenly seems to understand what it is that has changed Jisung’s demeanor.

There had been certain greed in Jisung before, a certain possessiveness regarding his own feelings that had put him in a different level than Minho, refusing to share his emotions and to metamorphose this into a shared story, denying his involvement in it. Now, as realization reveals itself in Jisung’s eyes, it will be difficult for him to declare untrue his contribution to this narration.

‘’Don’t you have the feeling as if…?’’ Minho starts asking.

‘’As if we had already held this conversation before?’’ Jisung completes before he is able to finish.

‘’Yes, precisely.’’

In a rush, Jisung shakes his head. ‘’No, I don’t feel that.’’ He turns his attention back to his glass of wine, the lights of the chandelier reflecting on it as he swirls it, mimicking the spiral of thoughts that they both are being submitted to.

‘’Then how did you know what I was about to suggest?’’

‘’That just sounds like something you would say.’’

Glass clinks against glass all around the room. People keep on chatting and the world keeps on turning on its axis. Minho feels as if a frayed thread had been put in between his hands. He needs to be clever, to pull only when the time feels right, when the thread feels solid enough to allow it to be pulled. Being too eager will lead him nowhere but to the destruction of the thread and his much pursued happy ending. 

‘’I have to admit that you don’t look like the kind of person that would be chasing an actor so passionately, I would think that you would only date inside of the academia.’’

‘’Then you have failed to understand how much I love you,’’ Minho blurts before he can think twice about the weight of his words.

The thread, however, seems to be able to resist the pull. Maybe the only way to make it secure enough is to keep on pulling from it.

Jisung scoffs, but he seems more amused rather than afraid.

‘’Why do you have to be so intense all the time? Aren’t you afraid you’ll scare me with such statements?’’

‘’If I was going to scare you I think you would be scared by now.’’

Jisung lets his head rest on one of his hands, Minho wishes his hand was the one having contact with his cheek right now. His smile is once again flirty, even as he morphes his face into faked horror.

‘’Don’t I look scared?’’ 

‘’To me, you look very interested,’’ Minho whispers.

‘’Maybe it is your craziness that fascinates me.’’ 

Minho gets up, offering one hand to Jisung before he even speaks out.

‘’Let’s go to the terrace and I’ll tell you the story about how we met. You’ll remember me.’’

With a mischievous smile, Jisung is set to put the mood of the room down. There’s a whine produced in unison when he says he is not feeling well and that he will retire to his room. There’s something strange in it, no one has engaged in a proper conversation with him and yet it feels as if his departure was a dreaded event.

Minho has always known better than to trust his senses without being critical. When the sensation is such as if the lights of the room went off once they leave it, when his hearing tells him that the chatting turns nonexistent once they cross some sort of imaginary line, when the path leading to the terrace seems void of any sort of obstacle, when all of this happens, Minho can only put the blame on a Cartesian malicious demon of utmost power and cunning, one employing all his energies in order to deceive him.

‘’We met here,’’ Minho starts telling the story, but Jisung cuts him short.

‘’That’s not true, this is the first time I set foot on the terrace.’’

The images in Minho’s head turn and bend and get blurry and change. The memories of them on the terrace are devoid of color and then of shape, until only splotches of grey are left and they come together to form new memories. There are shapes again and then there’s color to the new story.

‘’Okay. We met at the gardens, then,’’ Minho agrees, ‘’ It doesn’t really matter where.’’

‘’What happened then?’’

‘’There was a statue, a statue of two people holding each other. You asked me who they were.’’

‘’And what did you say?’’

‘’I had a theory, but I didn’t know for sure, so you were kind enough to explain to me who they were. I said that it didn’t matter, that they might as well have been you and I.’’

With his index finger sweeping on the edge of one column, Jisung is lost in his thoughts for a few seconds.

‘’It’s amazing,’’ The man finally says.

‘’What is it?’’

‘’There’s an impulse in me wanting to believe everything you say, wanting to create the memories you are so adamant to shape into something real. There is also something in me that wants nothing but to expulse you out of my life forever.’’

‘’Forever?’’ The word sounds unfitting, Minho notices.

‘’The grasp I have on time makes no sense. I met you two days ago, what does it even mean for me to expulse you forever?’’

Perhaps Jisung is growing conscious as well, perhaps he’s starting to get aware of his own backstory, of their shared past, of their constructed memories.

‘’You think that way because we have met before, and we will keep on meeting until you decide to remember me.’’

‘’Do you think this is something I have to choose?’’

‘’I think that there are things that neither you nor I can explain. I believe that multiple things can be real at the same time, contradictory things, unimaginable things, questionable things that we should just accept as they come,’’ Minho declares.

‘’That doesn’t answer my question.’’

‘’I love you, Jisung. I love you enough to let myself get tangled in this branched reality, in this  _ choose your own adventure  _ kind of situation. That’s all I know.’’

‘’And all I know is that for some reason, and against everything my common sense tells me I should do, I can’t help but feel incredibly drawn into you, Minho. I want to believe your stories, but I also can’t. I don’t know you.’’

‘’You know that I write at Les Temps Modernes.’’

‘’And you know that I am an actor.’’

A moment goes by as they try to recollect something else, anything else.

‘’Is that it?’’ Jisung asks, his brows furrowed and mouth open in disbelief. 

‘’It can’t be.’’

‘’I also know that you love me.’’

‘’I know that you love me too, I just don’t know the reasons as to why you won’t admit it.’’

‘’I am married…I think.’’

‘’You think?’’

‘’Well, he was there, wasn’t he? You saw him.’’

The memories of the salon are distorted. There were several people, several dishes, a chandelier and some chord instruments. There was laughter, a lot of it, there were games and people immersed in them.

‘’Did I? I don’t remember his face,’’ Minho shakes his head.

‘’He was there…with everyone else.’’

‘’I don’t remember him.’’

As his chest starts rising at an accelerated rhythm, Jisungs seems to be getting anxious. He looks to one side and then to the other. He looks to the black sky above them, to the ornate decorations around them and to the dusty floor under them.

‘’I have to go back. I need to go back to him, Minho.’’

‘’You kissed me right there, beside the statue,’’ Minho says, pointing at the barely visible statue standing in the garden.

‘’I didn’t…I don’t think I did. I couldn’t have.’’

***

Perhaps this sort of social gathering has stopped being what it once was, perhaps the focus is now put in some different sort of reunion. Maybe the château has stopped being in fashion, it is one of the subjects Minho has never been able to get a grasp on, so he wouldn’t know. He needs an explanation as to why the endless paths seem devoid of any living creature but them, this is the only one he can come up with.

Minho had recognized him before he was even able to see his features. Jisung had been aimlessly walking through the gardens, with its bushes in the shape of cones and dusty fountains, containers of oceans of memories. They had inevitably found each other once again.

Now they are tracing vectors full of questions, walking together through seemingly unconnected paths that Minho swore open their way for them and them only.

‘’Does this hotel hold many secrets?’’ Jisung asks, conscious of the irregularities that their meetings tend to hold.

‘’It depends on the person letting you around it,’’ Pretending to understand it, Minho tries to act as if he understood this reality they both find themselves in. Perhaps it will work to keep Jisung’s attention on him just for a little longer.

‘’How many times how you been here?’’

‘’I…don’t know?’’

He has definitely been here last year, after all that’s how he met Jisung. Apart from that, he can’t seem to recollect any other memories of the place. In spite of that, he can’t also say that he hasn’t been here any other time, at least not for sure.

‘’Will you finally tell me the alleged story of how we met?’’

The memories. What memories are there this time?

‘’Oh, that’s easy. I first saw you in the main salon. You were smoking on your own,’’ Minho explains.

‘’You must be mistaken, that was not me.’’

‘’You were waiting for me.’’

‘’That’s not true, I wasn’t waiting for anyone.’’

‘’There was a painting of two people, two people holding each other. You asked who they were and I said that they must as well had been us.’’

Jisung laughs, amused with Minho’s attempt at flirting.

‘’You laughed,’’ Minho remembers.

‘’You have gotten the story all wrong.’’

‘’Ok. You were in the middle of a crowd, talking about whatever was on vogue at the time.’’

‘’As I tend to be,’’ Jisung squints his eyes. Minho understands his criticism, the story is too vague, it could’ve been manufactured by anyone.

‘’Everyone’s focus was on you, but no one was really seeing you,’’ He tries to be more specific, to say something that not just any passerby would notice.

‘’You are being cheesy again.’’

‘’I made a remark, an incorrect one, designed to draw your attention.’’

‘’But I noticed what you were trying to do. It seemed like a creative way to get my attention in a crowd full of people trying to get it.’’

He remembers the crowd, the forever indifferent faces from which there was no escape.

‘’Now you are getting cocky,’’ Minho teases him, trying to hide the irrepressible excitement he’s experiencing.

Jisung is still concentrated in trying to remember.

‘’Let me guess, then I realized how attractive you were and everything went down from there?’’

‘’Maybe. Did you kiss me?’’

‘’I didn’t.’’

‘’Will you do it now?’’

‘’You are like a ghost, waiting for me,’’ Jisung shakes his head, looking at him as tears start forming in the end of his eyes. The tears are coming out of nowhere, what is it that has gotten Jisung all emotional so suddenly?

Minho reeks of desperation as he holds the look, needing the answer he has come looking for. He clears his throat, the words are too important, it is indispensable for him to ask once again and he can’t afford to have the words stuck in his throat, he can let himself get caught in his misery.

‘’Will you?’’ The words are trembling but clear. 

Orphan of past memories and devoted to one end only, Minho latches onto the determination in Jisung’s eyes and believes himself to be a religious man finding his way into his Mecca. Jisung’s hands on his neck feel like the salvation he’s been waiting for, like the hook needed for him to be pulled out of this pit filled with nothing but uncertainty. 

The taste of his lips comes mixed with the saltiness of his tears. He remembers both. He doesn’t remember them. They are sweet and yet they tinge in his mouth. They are salty and yet they melt in his tongue.

Jisung’s body feels heavy against his, his lithe frame becomes palpable, real as it materializes. Before touching it, before running his fingers in his arms and his hair and his small waist, before smelling his perfume and feeling the roughness of his chin’s skin, before tasting his mouth and pressing his lips against his eyes. Before all of this, Minho isn’t sure if he could’ve sworn on his life that Jisung was real.

Because his image seems unreal, his feelings for him seem to be on the final end of the spectrum of human emotions. The way in which his love for Jisung burns him from the insides doesn’t get tamed when he is as close to him as possible, it only develops further, caught in a dialectic that takes what’s real and what isn’t and puts it together in the greatest and most amazing love story that Minho could’ve thought of.

But Minho has always known better than to trust his senses without being critical, and so when Jisung is no longer by his side he doesn’t know if there even is an evil genius to put the guilt on.

*** 

Minho’s steps resonate all over the old mansion as he runs, the sound vibrating with its echo diverting into every single nook that the hotel possesses. There’s no one there to witness the desperation that he holds as he tries to reach Jisung’s room, for the whole place has been stripped off its guests, not a soul in sight to help him.

The extensive rugs that cover most of the surfaces of the hotel have a tendency to eat up any noise, sounds escaping the ear as the fabric muffles the undying steps of human experiences. Now, being the sole human soul inhabiting the multiple corridors, accompanied by the sounds of his soles slapping against the ornate soil, Minho is the only spectator to his misery, laid out in front of him in the shape of a doomed race against predestination. 

Suddenly, the immenseness of the hotel weighs down on Minho, as the floors seem to stretch beyond what should be possible, the ceilings standing taller than what he remembered, his steps multiplying again and again as he tries to move into his destination.

For sure he must’ve gone through this path before, he has seen the haughty line of staring mannequins laid across the hallway one too many times. He has seen the intricate patterns of the ceilings and the million mirrors reflecting eternally his crying face. 

Eternity has nothing on Minho. From the start of the universe until the current moment of him chasing the impossible, time has meant nothing, it hasn’t had any sort of significance. Time is just what goes by in between Minho’s steps, in between his breaths and his chant of screams shaped in the form Jisung’s name again and again.

The scream that Jisung lets out is loud enough to set him in the right direction. He now knows where to go.

Eternity has nothing on Minho, for he could’ve perfectly been here his whole life, stuck in his pursuit for Jisung’s room, all of his memories can be malicious fabrications of an almighty being setting him for failure.

And failure it is, because once he is able to reach the ajar doors, he only has to push them for them to open. Framed by crowns of feathers and under the spotlight created by numerous jewelry, Jisung’s small body is almost drowning on the covers of the king-sized bed.

This is how the story goes. Jisung has been shot in the chest and there’s nothing he can do about it. Jisung is lying dead on the bed. Jisung is lying dead on the floor. Jisung is dead and then dead again and then dead again.

There’s not much point in mourning, Minho just needs to try again.

***

Minho’s steps resonate all over the old mansion as he runs, the sound vibrating with its echo diverting into every single nook that the hotel possesses. There’s no one there to witness the desperation that he holds as he tries to reach Jisung’s room, for the whole place has been stripped off its guests, not a soul in sight to help him…

...Eternity has nothing on Minho, for he could’ve perfectly been here his whole life, stuck in his pursuit for Jisung’s room, all of his memories can be malicious fabrications of an almighty being setting him for failure...

But this time Jisung is sitting in front of the mirror, combing his hair, unbothered and unaware of Minho’s desperation to find him alive.

Kneeling by his side, Minho takes Jisung’s hand and inhales deeply. His perfume is real, his skin is real and his feelings for him are real. Everything else he is not too sure about.

‘’I won’t bother you anymore,’’ Minho declares with resolve, swallowing the tears on the brink of falling, ‘’I’m really sorry for this. It was never my intention to make you feel uncomfortable.’’

‘’Don’t be sorry.’’

‘’How could I not? I’ve fallen prisoner to a delusion that has caused nothing but harm, not only to myself, but to you as well.’’

‘’You are still the same,’’ Jisung laughs sadly.

‘’How am I the same?’’

‘’You still think everything revolves around you.’’

Minho can’t find an answer in himself. Is that what he tends to do? Does he think that everything revolves around him? Is this what he has done all this time while chasing an almost impossible love?

The hand on his cheek is able to ground him back. Jisung is looking back at him with an adoration he never thought he would see in him again. That is if he had ever seen him like that before, which he is no longer sure of.

‘’I do know you. Les Temps Modernes. You write there, don’t you? With Sartre and de Beauvoir,’’ Jisung mumbles sweetly. He is trembling, looking nervous but resolved.

At this point nothing does the work in surprising him, so he doesn’t act like he is shocked, even so this is a commentary he wasn’t expecting. It makes him feel naked and vulnerable, knowing that the man he loves has read his mumbles about life and existence that don’t even fit the overall idea of the magazine.

‘’I didn’t think you would read such dull writing,’’ He says, because asking what his thoughts are on the endless ideas he has poured on paper seems too much of a nerve wracking question.

The commentary doesn’t seem relevant, there are other ideas, more important ideas surrounding Jisung’s mind. His grab on his cheek gets firmer, he seems to need Minho’s attention on him and only him, a feeling he can only relate to.

‘’Don’t you have the feeling as if…?’’ Jisung starts.

‘’As if we had already held this conversation before?’’ Minho fills in before Jisung can finish.

‘’Yes, precisely.’’

‘’I do. How peculiar, isn’t it?’’ Minho reflects on it for a second. An image is starting to bloom in his head and he can now remember a letter with messy writing and a familiar perfume. ‘’Now that you say it, I remember you. You once wrote a letter to the magazine didn’t you?’’

It had been an unexpected event, Han Jisung wasn’t the first celebrity getting involved in the magazine, but he was never one he would’ve thought would be interested in the subjects he discussed.

‘’Against what positivism wants to think, we should beware the results of induction, be suspicious of them at the very least,’’Jisung recites, knowing the words by heart.

‘’That’s what the letter said.’’

‘’Can we always rely on observation to assure what will happen next? What if one day the sun doesn’t rise on the east?’’

‘’What if one day we don’t meet each other in Marienbad again?’’

‘’Should we believe in the universal statement that the sun will rise?’’

‘’I choose to believe that I will forever find you here.’’

‘’In the garden? In the terrace?’’ Jisung asks, laughing.

‘’In the garden, on the terrace. Singing, with your husband or on your own. Next to a statue, next to a painting, it will always be you.’’

‘’Did I kiss you?’’ Jisung asks, unsure.

‘’You did, ’’ Minho replies, more sure than what he has been in days. ‘’Will you come with me?’’

‘’I will. I will stay with you, Minho. I choose you, Minho.’’

To find themselves constructors of their own reality comes as both a relief and a burden. To find themselves the sole settlers of a universe made to find each other carries some sort of responsibility that most human beings never have to face.

Minho doesn’t know what lies behind the door of the room. Perhaps now that they have found each other the narrative will serve no purpose any longer. As words become scarce and dialogue fades away, he can’t help but smile and brush his tears away. His search has been fulfilled, and maybe now a realm made solely for and by them both awaits for them, available for eternity with an endless possibility game.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps their story ends once the words stop existing. Either way, he thinks that not knowing is a bearable state and that it will stay that way as long as Jisung keeps holding his face and staring at him as if he held the world in his hands. Which he might be.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is not nearly as good as the original movie is, I also didn’t play as much as I could’ve with the possibilities that this narrative gives me, but I’m pretty happy with the results of it anyways.
> 
> Sometimes explaining something can ruin it, but I’m going to do it nevertheless. If you don’t want to ruin the interpretation you had of this then maybe don’t read the following jajaja.
> 
> The whole idea of this story is to play with subjectivity and the daze that memories can be. I diverted a little bit from the original path that the movie had followed and I made the characters a little more aware of the fact that they are characters in a story, created for the sole purpose of loving each other and put in a universe made only for them. As you read already, they are also aware of the fact that once the story stops, their ‘’existence’’ stops as well. They have no fixed memories because there is no such thing as past for them, what’s real is what is written, and it can be changed from one scene to the next one. 
> 
> So, I hope you enjoyed it! All feedback is much appreciated. Go follow me on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/satoflove?s=09)


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